Sunday, 9 December 2012

Now that Tanit-Isis, Sown Brooklyn and I have announced to the blogosphere that we're going to sew this baby up, I keep seeing it everywhere. Of course, there was Tasia's post this week where she revealed A Thing I Made and Never Blogged About, which was in fact, Simplicity 8498.

Although she doesn't like the outcome, I think it looks great and I'm still optimistic for two reasons: she personally doesn't like the shift shape on her (whereas I do), and she doesn't like the busy print hiding the seam lines (which I can avoid, with the right fabric choice).

I've been trolling the internets for some ideas of what works and what doesn't; luckily, there are loads of examples of both 8498 and the reprinted 3833 online. Some of my favourites thus far:

That is sooooo very me. I would blatantly copy this in a flash if I had some medium weight red, white and blue fabrics. I don't. I have some broadcloth and some white sheeting, but I'm afraid that it it would be too flimsy. And I really wanted to work with what I had in my stash, since it is prodigious. Here are my whittled down choices:

The chocolate satin has small sprays of chartreuse and white blossoms, but it probably would hide the seaming detail. I can't for the life of me remember where or when I bought this, but I do know that I had something more like Simplicity 6723 in mind.

The grey fabric on the far right is a silk blend. It is quite heavy and a little bit shiny, in a platinum rather than silver kind of way, if that makes any sense. There is also a lot of it; like, 5.5 meters of it. I think I should save this for a fabric hog of a dress like Vogue 1102:

Which leaves me with the two cottons in the middle. I think that the white with wispy Bhutanese clouds is gorgeous, but it is very heavy. It is Ikea fabric, and I bought it with nothing particular in mind, but just because I loved it. It would be great as something really, really structured. Structured to the point of being sculptural.

Which leaves us with the red cotton. It is medium weight and has a kind of sponged finish to it. The best way I can describe it is like those faux finishes that people used to paint on their apartment walls back in the '90s. (Remember Debbie Travis, queen of the faux finish? Man, I loved her show The Painted House.)

Anyway, I'm not 100% sure that this fabric is the right choice, but hell, you can get away with a lot more red at Christmas than other times of year. Unless I run across a bundle of red, white and blue double knit at my local thrift store this week, I think I'm going with the red.

Yes, I'm finally on Instagram

I tweet sporadically

I pin cool stuff

Need more email?

Search This Blog

About Me

During the day, I am a mild mannered scientist. During the evenings and weekends, I am an exhausted mom. During my free time, I am teaching myself to sew. In other words, my house is a mess and we eat a lot of pasta.
Contact me at vicki_muise [at] yahoo [dot] ca if there's something too exciting / embarrassing / private to post as a comment.